NGC 2481

NGC 2481

NGC 2481 is a lenticular galaxy in the constellation Gemini about 102 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 42,000 ly, about 42% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 2,182 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Lenticular
type · S0-a
102 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
42k ly
across
12.5
apparent magnitude
2,182 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 102 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 2481 as it looked roughly 102 million years ago. The photons left before that much of history had passed, and are only now reaching us. This distance is estimated from the galaxy's redshift, so the lookback time is approximate.

Nearest galaxies
NGC 2480Barred spiral7.4 million ly
apart
IC 2256Spiral8.8 million ly
apart
IC 2271Elliptical9.0 million ly
apart
IC 2267Spiral10 million ly
apart
IC 2268Elliptical10 million ly
apart
NGC 2577Elliptical11 million ly
apart
Worlds in the same direction on the sky

Source: structural data (position, morphology, brightness, redshift) from OpenNGC (CC BY-SA). Recession velocity from RC3 (de Vaucouleurs et al. 1991, via NASA/HEASARC, public domain). Distance computed by gravityfinder from redshift via Hubble's law (H0 = 70 km/s/Mpc).

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